


The Bleeding Hearts Bush

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [8]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-25 18:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14384994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Johnny Cade has hanahaki disease. (modified: the one suffering from the disease must believe they are deserving of the love they wish to receive to be cured).





	1. Newspaper Article: NEW AND UNUSUAL DISEASE DISCOVERED, April 18th, 1945

**Author's Note:**

> y'all know where this is going!! we know me and my brand by now!!
> 
> anyway, this is a teaser basically. i'm really hoping i'll fucking finish this fucking fic, but i guess we'll see. also the reason i have "no archive warnings apply" is bc i don't wanna spoil anything.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A newspaper article declaring the discovery of a new and unusual disease.

_Newspaper Article_ **: NEW UNUSUAL DISEASE DISCOVERED** , April 18th, 1945

_Professor Hanahaki of the University of Tokyo reports discovering a strange new disease as of last weekend. It has affected only a small portion of the population and does not seem to be contagious in any way, shape, or form. However, it does seem to be deadly and, while the professor has begun studying it, there is no cure for it at this time. The professor describes the disease as odd and the symptoms do seem to fit into that category. The patient will grow flowers in their lungs and heart and begin to cough up blood and petals. This will start as a slight discomfort in the chest and a mild cough, and progress to severe pain, vomiting of blood, and then, once the flowers roots reach the veins, death. The cause is unknown, though strangely, all of the patients so far were also experiencing unrequited love. One of the patients underwent surgery to remove the flowers, but this resulted in an inability to feel love for anything at all. Another patient was miraculously cured after the object of their affections reciprocated their feelings. However, this happened with another patient as well and they still perished, so the professor is unsure at this time what caused the first patient’s recovery. All since patients have refused the surgery and have perished. As previously stated, there is no cure at this time, but Professor Hanahaki – for which the disease is named – is hopeful that by studying it as he is that he will be closer to finding a cure._


	2. In the Back of the Vacant Lot There Was A Bush...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring was Johnny's favorite season.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't originally going to have this be the first chapter, but i decided....who is stopping me from splitting up chapters this way other than myself??? so we're going with it. i hope you enjoy.

Johnny Cade’s favorite season was spring. It was cool in the mornings as the sun was coming up and during the day is was pleasantly warm. At night it was warm enough to go walking around for a few hours before the heat of the day left the earth. Summer wasn’t as nice because it was too hot during the day and the only time it was really nice out was at night and then there were bugs. Johnny didn’t mind bugs as long as they didn’t bite or swarm in his face, but that was what most of them did.

A part of him thought he liked the spring because he was born in the spring.

Well, technically right before it. His birthday was the first of March. Spring started the 21st, but by March what little snow had fallen had already melted and there were buds on the branches of the trees in his neighborhood. Spring came early in Tulsa. It was one of the perks of living in the south.

But it wasn’t until April of Johnny’s sixteenth year that he figured out why he liked the spring so much: it was when the flowers bloomed – or, in particular, it was when the bleeding hearts bush, pushed into the corner of the vacant lot, bloomed.

He was sure no one knew about the bush. It grew wild and well, but never was tended to. He liked it better that way. He was certain that if someone saw such a pretty bush in this neighborhood they’d be tempted to destroy it, get it to fit in with its surroundings.

Johnny wanted it to be the one nice thing he had that was only his.

And so it was. Until April of his sixteenth year. And that was how it figured it out.

After the Socs beat him up and left him for all but dead in the lot, they’d torn up the bush, tearing off all the flowers, throwing them to the ground. He was afraid they’d torch it, but luckily they hadn’t had any matches or gasoline on them. As it was, the bush was ruined. It looked like something had attacked it, all its flowers and leaves littering the ground of the lot.

A big part of the reason Johnny cried so hard when the gang found him was he remembered what had happened to the bush. And he realized all at once that was why he loved spring. He wondered if he’d ever be able to love spring again or if the bush would ever recover.

He would never find out.


	3. First Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny coughs up blood....and petals. Twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am quite happy with how this turned out, but idk wtf to do for the next part, so enjoy this bc who tf knows when i'm gonna update (unless y'all wanna prompt me bc i am so open to that)

The first time Johnny Cade was woken up by a pain in his chest and a cough on his lips was almost three weeks after the Socs beat him up in the vacant lot.

He remembered it well because of when he’d woken up the next morning after he’d spent the night in the lot on the old, torn out car seat, covered in newspapers for blankets. He didn’t remember it because of the lot specifically. He spent many nights in the vacant lot with newspapers for blankets. He remembered it because the sun was shining down through the leaves in the tree above him, right on his face, right in his eyes, and when he first opened his eyes, it looked like there were sparkling orbs of light hovering in the air above him. It wasn’t until his eyes had adjusted to the light that he saw it was just the sun shining through the leaves, but for one dazzling moment, it had truly looked like something divine and he forgot all about why he woke up to begin with.

Then the pain in his chest came back and he remembered.

His head still fuzzy from sleep, Johnny propped himself up on one arm and rubbed his chest, a frown on his face. This hadn’t ever happened before and, while a part of him was nervous, another much larger part of him brushed it off. It wasn’t as if his family had money to take him to the doctor anyway and even if they did, it wasn’t like they actually would.

His mother, Debra Cade, hated him for being who he was: not a perfect daughter, but a greaser son. His father, Allen Cade, hated him for the same reason and instead of yelling at him for all the neighbors to hear about it, hit him instead. He did other things too in an attempt to keep Johnny in line. There was a reason Johnny tried to never sleep at home. There was a reason he didn’t like people touching him and why he was so jumpy. Getting jumped by the Socs had exacerbated it, but it all originated in that small white house at the end of the street.

His eyes flicked in the direction of it and he made a face.

There was no place on earth Johnnycake hated more than that house.

But he didn’t have to go there. Not right now. There were four other houses he could go to.

The gang knew what Johnny’s home life was like and kept their doors open to him as often as they could. He didn’t like imposing upon them. He rarely chose to spend the night on their couches instead of the car seat in the vacant lot. But there were times he had no choice. Sometimes it was too cold to spend the night in the vacant lot. Sometimes the fear of the Socs finding him alone wouldn’t let him sleep. And sometimes he was sick.

The pain in his chest spiked again and he winced.

Today was the third option. He thought, anyway.

Going to the doctor required money he didn’t have and wasn’t going to let the gang spend on him anyway, so most often when he was sick, he’d just go crash on one of their couches until he felt better, maybe take something in their medicine cabinet if they didn’t need it and hope it helped. Most often he went to the Curtis house. Even though the Curtis brothers weren’t well off and, since their parents died, had less money than just about any of them, they also had the most pleasant house to be in. It was why the rest of the gang ended up spending so much time there.

The Curtis house was up the street and a block away from the Cade house, also on a corner. The houses faced each other and could be seen from down the street. The vacant lot was down the street from the Cade house and not much further away from the Curtis house than it was. Dally’s house was actually closer in proximity, but Johnny didn’t want to go there right now. For a multitude of reasons.

So he pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he did so, the pain in his chest coming in aching waves, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket, and, head down, headed in the direction of the Curtis house. He didn’t look up again until he reached the corner where his house was.

He paused there, swallowing hard as he stared at the white facade. His eyes flicked to the post with the house number on it: 738. It looked so innocent in the daylight. Only he knew better.

He turned on his heel and, head back down, headed down the street. He didn’t look up again until he reached the curb.

The Curtis house had a similar facade to the Cade house. They were both white houses and both had similar layouts. But the Curtis house always looked more homey and friendly to Johnny than his own had ever had and he was sure that it had something to do with what went on in his own house. It was like the love that had been passed around the Curtis house had made it look beautiful, while the hatred passed around his house had just made it start to decay.

Opening the chain link fence, he walked up the short sidewalk and stairs to the front porch and knocked loudly. The action made him wince and his heart start to pound.

He was drawing attention to himself again.

The door opened less than a minute later, revealing Ponyboy.

Ponyboy was Johnny’s closest friend. He understood him in ways none of the rest of the gang did. No one else liked books and animals and nature the way he and Ponyboy did. And no one else thought spending time together in silent could be considered fun either. That was another reason he often chose to go to the Curtis house when he couldn’t be in the vacant lot. Ponyboy understood him. And therefore Sodapop and Darry were able to better understand him too.

“Hey, Johnny,” Pony said, opening the screen and then holding it so Johnny could walk in.

“Hey, Ponyboy,” Johnny replied his voice soft. He didn’t walk in. “Can I come in? I woke up and didn’t feel real good.”

“Of course, Johnny,” Pony replied with a sympathetic smiling as he turned to one side to make room for Johnny to walk passed him into the house.

Johnny gave a small, close-mouthed smile and this time _did_ walk in. “Thanks, Pony,” he said. His voice was still soft.

The Curtis house was clean, if small. There were only two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. It was about the size of every house on the block and had a similar layout to every house on the block as well. Johnny’s own house had a similar layout, but his house seemed much smaller. It was a constant mess. His bedroom, in contrast, always felt empty. He had so little to call his own compared to his parents.

Right now the house was in an organized sort of chaos.

Darry was cooking breakfast for himself, Sodapop, and Ponyboy. He stood in front of the stove with a pan of eggs cooking in front of him and his work shirt draped over one shoulder. He was a better cook than everyone else in the gang combined. The only one who came anywhere close was, shockingly, Dally. They all came over as often as they could to take advantage of Darry’s cooking and unless he was working or low on money, he didn’t really mind.

He glanced up when the screen door slammed after Johnny came in and smiled at him. “Hey Johnnycake,” he said with a smile. Darry was twenty, the oldest out of all of them, but he looked and acted much older. Sometimes he did the opposite, but that was typically only when he could find the time to get drunk with the rest of them.

Johnny smiled at Darry but didn’t reply.

Sodapop was sitting at the kitchen table, wolfing down a plate of eggs. He was wearing his DX shirt unbuttoned and Johnny guessed Steve was right behind him if they worked today.

As if on cue, the screen door opened again as Soda looked up at Johnny and said, “Hey Johnnycake! How’s it goin’?” Soda knew that the odds of Johnny actually answering the question were slim, but Soda couldn’t help himself. He liked talking almost as much as Two-Bit.

“You ready to go, Soda?” Steve said.

Johnny moved to one side out of the way.

Soda gave some sort of noncommittal reply and Johnny turned and headed towards the bathroom, the pain in his chest making him wince. He wondered if Darry had anything in the medicine cabinet for pain. He closed the door behind him and took a breath and when he let it out he coughed. It was a wet cough, but whatever he needed to cough up didn’t come up and he gave up after a moment of hacking in front of the bathroom mirror.

He opened the medicine cabinet, wincing and rubbing his chest, but he didn’t know the names of half of the pills in the cabinet and he didn’t want to take something that would just make things worse by mistake. He closed the cabinet and went back to coughing as he heard the front door open and slam shut again, signaling Soda and Steve leaving. He continued coughing until he felt the taste of copper in the back of his throat. Then he spit into the sink and felt his eyes widen.

Tiny little splotches of red spattered the white porcelain bowl of the sink. Johnny reached with trembling fingers to his lips, touching the wetness there. They came away red too. He coughed again and this time there was something else that came up, but it wasn’t blood. It felt like...a piece of paper almost, stuck in his mouth. He coughed and hacked and spit until it fluttered down to the sink bowl.

A petal.

_What the hell?_

Johnny stared at the petal, at the flecks of blood surrounding it. The blood made sense. It was scary, it meant he was likely dying, but it made sense.

The petal did not.

Maybe if he’d been eating flowers it would make a little bit more sense, but it still didn’t make sense why he’d cough it up along with the blood rather than on its own. It didn’t make sense. He picked it up and studied it and realized it was from a bleeding hearts bush.

He thought of his own bush in the lot, the one the Socs had destroyed.

It still hadn’t recovered.

He took a breath. He still felt like he needed to cough, but he could ignore it for now and he had a feeling if he didn’t he was going to be coughing in this bathroom forever.

Returning to the Curtis living room, he found it fuller than ever. It turned out that Sodapop and Steve had never left for work, though they had to be cutting it close by now, and Two-Bit Matthews and Dallas Winston had arrived as well.

Johnny froze in the entrance to the hallway, just barely unseen.

When Johnny was six years old, Dally had rescued him from a gang of Socs and ever since then Johnny had been in love with him. He didn’t think Dally loved him back and he was certain he never would. It was common knowledge that boys who liked boys were not liked at all in this town. The Socs enjoyed targeting them more than any other group of people. Johnny knew they’d known about him when they’d jumped him in the vacant lot. He wasn’t sure they knew he liked boys, but they knew he hadn’t been born one. He didn’t know how they knew that, but they had. He didn’t feel like it was a stretch to assume they knew the rest.

A million and one times Johnny had thought about telling Dally how he felt, but he’d always stopped himself. If Dally didn’t like boys, if he didn’t like boys who liked boys...everything would fall apart and Johnny would rather be in love with him silently forever than lose their friendship.

He coughed again, this time into his hand.

He looked at it while no one else knew he was there, while no one else knew to be looking.

More blood. A few petals.

He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his denim jacket.

More secrets. A few lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the bleeding heart flower represents innocence and purity as well as dying young in a tragic way, so i’m glad i chose this flower even before i knew its meaning bc that fits johnny well. ANYWAY, Y’ALL PREPARED TO SUFFER?? :D CAUSE I SURE AM. I’LL BE SUFFERING RIGHT ALONG WITH YOU, SO MAYBE THAT WILL MAKE U HATE ME LESS.


	4. Using The Hallway As A Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny watches Dally from the hallway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this is only a few hundred words, but listen........i'm writing and publishing this weird.

Dallas Winston was born one year before Johnny Cade, but he looked at least two years older than him rather than just one. He was tall, muscular, and good-looking, even though he was always wearing the same outfit – jeans, a t-shirt, and his leather bomber jacket. He’d had several girlfriends, none of whom he’d stuck with because they’d all cheated on him in the end, even the nice ones. He didn’t love anyone or anything except cigarettes and booze. And no one loved him either. Not really.

Except Johnny Cade.

But Dally didn’t know that. No one knew that. Everyone around here was really close. No one saw the way Johnny talked about Dally or looked at him different from anyone else because no one was really looking for anything different and Johnny knew how to speak to make sure they didn’t.

And, as he stood in the entrance to the hallway, staring at Dally, watching him talk to everyone else while no one knew he was there, he allowed himself to look at Dally differently and for a little longer than normal.

Dally was sitting on the arm of the couch in the Curtis’ living room next to the front door. It was old and beat up, but not torn and therefore usable. His dark hair was messy from sleep. He didn’t grease it, so it stuck up all over the place. It was endearing. Johnny wanted to run his fingers through it. There was a lazy half-grin on his lips as he looked at Sodapop, listening to him talk. Johnny couldn’t understand the conversation, he wasn’t paying attention to it, but he liked watching the way Dally’s lips moved when he spoke. They were pink and looked soft. Dally’s skin was pale porcelain white. He looked like a statue come to life, a work of art. His light skin contrasted with Johnny’s dark skin and Johnny wondered what their fingers would look like laced together.

“Hey, Johnnycake!”

He jumped and blinked, being pulled violently back to reality as he saw Two-Bit looking at him.

Swallowing, Johnny made himself smile and said softly, “Hey, Two-Bit.” He didn’t look at him and shoved his hands back into his pockets.

He didn’t have to be looking at Dally to notice Dally’s eyes flicked to him when he spoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if y'all have any suggestions for the next chapter, pls feel free to comment them because idk what to do next rip. until then i am going to have this marked as complete because i rly don't know what to do next.


End file.
